Chicago Marathon Training Week 4 and the Disneyland Half Marathon RR

This has been a weird cutback week for me.  I spent most of the week with severe asthma, three horrible runs and a trip to LA to run the Disneyland Half Marathon.  I was supposed to run this one as a progressive run, per coach's order, but since my husband was crying and lamenting I was not running his first Disney race with him, and he protested every chance he got, my coach switched my LR last week to add some MP miles and then I was told to go run this with my husband.

This is his first Disney race and he was very excited.  He ended up a tad disappointed, but I made sure he understood that the delays in this race and the lack of organization and slightly boring course were not typical of the Disney Half Marathon he is doing in January.  We had fun, but we had issues during this race that I have never had during the Disney races down here.

This is his 6th half marathon in six months.  Not sure where he got this idea of doing multiple races to increase his ranking on the Half Fanatics (not like I did that with the Maniacs last year, ha!) and he wanted to keep his sub-3 hour streak.  Based upon the three delays we had, we ended up running a 3:06 which I think was great for him at this race.

The race had very nice weather, 12 miles were under the cover of clouds and no sun, and the humidity was non existent.  I could breathe, fancy that.  The start at 5:30am had temperatures and heat indexes close to 40F cooler than we have had here for months, so it was a nice relief not to sweat that much and not to choke on air.  Overall, the weather was very nice to run a HM.

I was supposed to run in Corral B but since I was running with him, I moved to Corral H where he was.  We saw a fellow forumite from TX in Corral G and I tried to meet with Lurch and other friends but we were not successful in that.  For the first time ever I carried my phone so I could meet Lurch but we missed each other.  There is always Disney!

We started at around 6am (his corral) and we were off.  As soon as we started, my husband needed to pee.   The long wait was the culprit.  We tried to stop at the miles 1 and 2 potties but they had a bread line, so we continued on.  Then, the first water station at close to Mile 3 had a traffic jam (da fuck) of close to 4 minutes. There was no water in the cups, the volunteers were trying the accommodate the 200 runners that were stopped there and there was no way to run through it.  It was a very tight spot with no space to move or take water.  This mile ended up being 16mm because of that.  So, 4 minutes wasted right there.

After that little delay we saw the potties and both of us went there. Some delay there, but we were having fun seeing people, characters, and the Disneyland park that we were OK with the delays.

We kept going and off we went until Mile 5ish we saw a friend of mine from the Maniacs (Marathon Mitch) who had driven there just to cheer his friends up.  We stopped for 1-2 minutes to chat, take pictures with him and off we went again.  At around Mile 9, we were close to the Angels Stadium when my husband yelled: Look!  What you love, DUST!  I am allergic to dust and the next mile was in a dust path with lots of dust flying around.  Fortunately, I had my buff today, so I lowered it and looked like a pirate for 1-2 miles while I breathed the dusty air.  It worked!  No asthma attack there.

Running through the Angels Stadium was very cool (similar to the ESPN section of the Disney Marathon).  Lots of people there cheering us on and people announcing each of the runners as they ran by.

Off we went back to the finish line when my husband had to stop at the potties again.  He was having some stomach issues and by then he couldn't ignore them more.  So, we stopped and while he was on the line, I stayed by the water station and cheered some of the runners as they ran by.

We head up to the finish line, inside the park, and he is still doing well, considering all the stops and his stomach.  He didn't falter until the last mile and by then, the sun was out in the sky (but it was not really bad at all compared what we are used to).  We head to the finish line and we crossed.

He got his second moon and he is very happy.  He has another HM in two weeks and it will be the first time he has that close of a time between them.  Hoping his recovery goes well.

Some pics:





Not sure where the fuck I am here but I swear I was running with him the whole time even though most of the pictures do not show me with him. 

I'll buy the pics when they are all available, but there are some that look fine and there are some where I have no idea what he is doing, ha.



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